Why are people afraid of nihilism?

Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy.

For most people, there is either a social order, or there's... nothing. They interpret social order as coming from an institution or some data because they're afraid to admit it comes from people. Admitting it comes from people means that our present social order comes from the socialization of the crowd, and also, that the alternative is picking sane people and making them the basis of the social order while the rest of us try to get sane.

Thus they cling to this belief of an "inherent" social order so they can avoid these unpopular truths.

Nihilism is only 'pessimistic' as long as you actually believe in something as crazy as an inherently valuable social order. Few people actually do believe in such a thing, yet the vast mayority want to believe it.

Without the sociality, they fear that the universe and life itself will be meaningless and depressing - but in fact, it is this very belief that makes life so meaningless and depressing to many a modern.

It was during the early stages of my very first acid trip - I was either 15 or 16 - that I realized with a blinding flash of certainty, that all the rules, stances, attitudes and values of my native society were completely arbitrary. Interestingly, this revelation didn't make me scorn it, and want to destroy it. I could see immense value in my civilization, in spite of the falsity of its foundations. It was a great thing. But it had no connection with nature, or the natural order of things. It was entirely made-up.

Try as I might, I could never again subscribe to it, though, or see it in anything like the same way. From that day, I've been like Robinson Crusoe, operating on, and outside of, the fringes of the world of people.

Civilization really couldn't afford to have its young people doing acid. But neither could it stop it.

Socialization is normally regulated by our relatively new prefrontal cortexes, yet it originates in a much more primitive part where the savage pack animal survivor, the ID, dominates. The savage isn't much necessary or utilized in our safe contemporary world. Some folks here admire the dysfunctional sociopath as superior for this reason, yet this creature is commonly weeded out by us as a damaged part needing replacement.

So, what we see as socialization now is for us a mutated, overly refined form of behavior that much of the rest of the animal kingdom has but in a more pure state. We still have pack leaders, but they aren't necessarily the most visibly savage unless we know what to look for and we know how to define savagery as applied to contemporary humans.

Nihilism could be our way around pretending at seeing ourselves as noble savages and realizing our civilization is just another form of brute barbarism, repackaged to seem new and more convenient. Modernity is just a mass rationalization against guilt over our real nature in a sense.

But it had no connection with nature, or the natural order of things. It was entirely made-up.

This is not right, it comes from the natural order. You can see the natural order under it, otherwise it would be completely malleable. No, it is not entirely made up, but emerges organically from what lies underneath. It is partly made up, which is why it can be perverted in its direction and be made to subvert the natural order. I am surprised to hear this from you, it is a basic conservative belief that the mores of society emerge organically and are not merely arbitrary. That is the liberal stance. Am I misunderstanding?

As soon as people get together and make the raw business of survival less than the most important thing, you have a society. For people to cooperate at all, there then have to be rules. The rules will always be unnatural, because they are no longer dealing with the purely natural business of raw survival. Of course, it is a matter of degree. It can start out well, work well for a long time, but finally, the number of people will reach a critical mass where it no longer works as it did. Conservatism is a braking mechanism that reminds people of the hierarchies involved in a successful society. It reminds that there are always consequences to everything. A conservative society will in no way be perfect, but it will have the best chance of continuation for the longest period. Conserve means exactly that. Eke out. Make last. Make do. Avoid excess and destruction. As I said, no society lasts, but a conservative one will, by its nature, outlast the others.

I guess you could say that roles is the beginning of society: Warrior, shaman, mother, hunter etc. At first, these will probably be unconscious. The shaman is a being-shaman, for example. He has no consciousness outside of this role. And each role is a nescessary part for the being of the whole. Everybody have to be exactly what they are.

I'm beginning to think that the downfall of modern society has much to do with the dissociation of the individuals societal role on the one hand (job, career, political view etc.), and the abstract notion of belonging to an undifferentiated 'humanity' on the other (equality).

Probably, the idea of a role is a disconnect between what somebody is, and the abstract label applied to that, by others. I've heard feminists refer to being a man as acting out a role. Which seems so crazy that it is difficult to even respond to it. Personally, I like the idea of roles, because they generally seem to work quite well. My wife and I have distinct roles, and are comfortable with them. She does her stuff, and I do mine, and together, we get done what needs to get done.

I guess natural roles belong to a society, where people aren't 'free' to redefine their own role or that of others as they please (like resentful feminists who want to destroy masculinity through 'intellectual analysis'). A society like that would be united by the necessity of pure survival, and there would be no goal beyond that. Each would have to play their distinct part, or else the group would perish.

That could be called a natural society. There would be rules, but they wouldn't be 'made up'.

It would also be a very uncivilised society, though. At heart.

I believe that a society united by such a sense of each playing his or her part would be a healthy society. If this underlying order could be preserved then maybe - just maybe - some layers of civilisation could exist on top of that - some technology and some agriculture, without losing the purity.

If the organic interaction of archetypal, natural roles could be preserved (or reawakened), perhaps we could then speak of a society in accordance with the Way?